Bo Expelled From Party Shows China Transition on Track: Analysts

By Bloomberg News -
Sep 30, 2012

Analysts including Columbia
University’s Andrew Nathan, the Brookings Institution’s Kenneth
Lieberthal and University of Sydney’s Kerry Brown comment on
China’s decision to expel former Politburo member Bo Xilai from
the Communist Party.

Bo abused his power, bore “major responsibility” in the
murder of British businessman Neil Heywood and had improper
sexual relations with several women, the official Xinhua News
Agency said Sept. 28. China’s Politburo removed him from public
office and transfered his case to the judicial system, it said.

Xinhua also announced on the same day that the 18th Party
Congress would start Nov. 8. The congress will see more than
2,000 delegates from the 82-million member ruling party gather
in Beijing to anoint new leaders.

Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace:

“It is an ancient Chinese tradition that a loser in a
power struggle must be thoroughly discredited and found morally
corrupt. Note, however, that so far, the focus is not on policy
or political errors, probably for fear of spreading factional
battle lines in a party that wants to emphasize unity. This was
signaled earlier this year by General Secretary Hu Jintao.”

“This process seems to be moving faster for Bo than two
previous cases, Chen Liangyu of Shanghai and Chen Xitong of
Beijing, both of whom were expelled by the party and then
prosecuted over longer periods. This suggests some urgency to
putting the Bo case behind and focusing on the 18th Party
Congress and its leadership arrangements.”

Andrew Nathan, professor of political science at Columbia
University:

“Surely there must have been a political struggle at the
top over how harshly to deal with Bo. The ten day disappearance
of Xi and the several week delay of the opening of the 18th
Party Congress would seem to have been outward signs of such a
struggle.”

“Presumably the struggle was over how harshly to deal with
him. The side that turns out to have been the losing side must
have argued that it would be enough to charge him with
violations of Party discipline, such as not controlling his wife
and subordinate police chief. If that was the disposition, then
the punishment would have been some form of Party disciplinary
sanction, possibly without even expelling him from the Party.”

“The fact that little direct evidence of crimes by Bo was
introduced in the Gu and Wang trials made me think that the ‘go-
lightly’ side was winning the debate.”

“But the outcome shows that the go-hard side won, because
the charges against him (which of course will be reproduced in
the outcome of his ‘trial’) are of the kind that truly end
careers. He is expelled from the Party and handed over to the
judicial authorities (which means into a criminal process) for
crimes that are described as sweeping in nature and damaging in
their consequences - i.e., as requiring a heavy punishment.”

“He’ll have to be given a long prison term. He will not
necessarily have to serve all of it because noblesse oblige may
lead the authorities to let him go home quietly after several
years on health grounds. But he will be finished in politics.”

“Why did it turn out this way? Of course nobody knows. One
theory that appeals to me (but I may be too naive) is that after
some decades of building up a legal system and talking about
‘rule of law,’ given the huge publicity about the details of
Bo’s case, and such public and hard to explain facts about the
wealth of his family, the leaders felt that they couldn’t get
away with covering up his crimes in front of either the informed
middle class domestic audience or the international audience.

‘‘In other words, this can be seen as a small step forward
for rule of law as a constraint on the leadership when they make
decisions with political consequences.”

“A more cynical (and not necessarily incompatible)
explanation would be that because Bo had widespread support in
Chongqing and among some ‘left’ Party members and intellectuals
for his ‘Chongqing model,’ and because any shred of political
life left in him would threaten the potential revival of
ideological controversy in Chinese politics (which has
disappeared since Deng’s southern trip in 1992), the leadership
was able to come together around the idea that for the sake of
political stability, no possibility should be left for Bo to
make a future political recovery, and that it would be necessary
to ‘beat the dog in the water.’”

“The disposition of his case will send a signal that
ideological challenges to the leadership consensus are not
tolerated.”

“If, as I suspect, Xi was able to pull together this
outcome, it seems to me it strengthens his power. It shows Xi’s
ability to create a consensus in the leadership for an outcome.
And it weakens the rationale for Hu to stay on for two years as
Central Military Commission chief.”

Kenneth Lieberthal, director of the John L. Thornton China
Center at the Brookings Institution:

“There has been sharp debate over how to handle the Bo
Xilai case, and at times in recent months authoritative insiders
have felt that he would receive very lenient treatment or, at
other times, that he would have the book thrown at him. Clearly,
the decision last week was to throw the book at him.”

“It is standard procedure in such cases to first expel the
accused from the Party and then have the judicial organs take
over to pursue a criminal prosecution. The indications from the
official announcement suggest that the criminal indictment will
be very wide ranging and damaging -- at a minimum including
major corruption and involvement in murder.”

“There is a hint that others involved in corruption with
him will also be brought to book. If accurate, that is
surprising -- the betting has been that the current leadership
would draw a tight circle around Bo and not implicate others in
order to avoid further infighting and disruption during a
leadership transition.”

“The charges of sexual immorality and violations of
discipline are Party (rather than criminal) offenses and help
justify removing Bo from the Party.”

“The timing is not surprising. The leaders did not want
delegates to the 18th Party Congress focusing on questions about
what will happen to Bo Xilai. It would have been very surprising
had the leaders not clarified the handling of the Bo case before
the Congress convenes.”

“The timing is not a surprise but the range of the formal
allegations is. The current leaders will use this to highlight
that they are staunch in fighting corruption, moral turpitude,
violent activity by political figures and violations of Party
discipline. They are trying to turn a huge embarrassment,
including the extent of corruption revealed at the top of the
Party, into a propaganda victory. In this, they have a very high
hill to climb, given the skepticism clearly evident on Chinese
social media.”

Kerry Brown, professor and executive director of the University
of Sydney’s China Studies Centre:

“This shows now the consensus in the leadership is that
they can throw everything at Bo and go for complete character
destruction, throwing open all his previous career, his private
life, etc.”

“Hu Jintao called Wang Lijun a traitor to the Party and
state earlier in the year, but I think in reality the belief in
the party elite is that it is Bo who was the traitor in opening
up China to American involvement through mismanagement of Wang,
and then in the murder by his wife of Heywood.”

“I guess this treatment shows a lot of anger. At the end
of the day, too, this outcome shows that for all its attempts to
show a better nature, the Party remains at heart ruthlessly
focused on power, and absolutely unforgiving to those who are
seen as impeding this by making the Party weak. Bo’s great crime
was to challenge this, and for that he is now consigned to a
sort of hellish wilderness.”

Christopher Clarke, retired senior China analyst at the U.S.
Department of State who is now an independent consultant:

“Bo’s downfall fits a pattern in each past leadership
transition since the death of Deng Xiaoping. Skeptics may
rightly suggest that similar charges could be laid against
almost any high-ranking Chinese leader, but Bo made himself the
political nail that stuck out and, in the Chinese saying, almost
certainly had to be pounded down.”

“Bo’s downfall removes any threat to a smooth succession
at the congress by Xi Jinping to the top positions of party
chief and (next spring), president. He likely will also become
commander-in-chief of the military either this fall or within
the next two years.”

“Bo, with a flamboyant personality, a cohort of like-
thinking officials who are out-of-sync with the prevailing
leadership policy consensus, considerable popular support, and
impeccable revolutionary credentials as the son of one of Deng
Xiaoping’s close comrades, posed a major threat to Xi’s ability
to consolidate his power quickly and smoothly.”

“Removing Bo served the dual purpose of removing a
potentially destabilizing element in the succession and, to
quote another Chinese proverb, ‘killing a chicken to scare the
monkeys.’ It will damp down anyone else’s ambition to challenge
the existing succession arrangement or threaten Xi’s position
after the Congress.”

“In a sense, Wang Lijun’s entry into the U.S. Consulate in
Chengdu was a god-send for the leadership in that it brought to
a head the question of what to do with Bo Xilai, whom many
Chinese and outside analysts thought would remain in the top
leadership -- and possibly even enter its standing committee --
thereby leaving a ticking political time bomb for Xi Jinping to
deal with.”

“Jiang Zemin faced a similar challenge in the early 1990s
from Beijing party chief Chen Xitong, who was also purged from
the party and sentenced to prison on charges on which many other
leaders could have been equally justly accused. Current party
chief and president Hu Jintao likewise engineered the removal of
politburo member and Shanghai party secretary Chen Liangyu who
had challenged his authority.”

“The main difference this time is that the removal of the
threat took place before, not after the handover of power. In
both earlier cases, after the ‘killing of the chicken,’ no
‘monkey’ within the leadership stepped forward to present a
significant political challenge to the successor.”

“Bo’s removal is also the culmination of a year of serious
challenges faced by China’s leadership, including a faltering
economy, increasing disagreement within the leadership about the
need for significant political and structural reform,
deteriorating relationships with many of China’s neighbors
(including Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam) as well as the
U.S., increasing social unrest and protest, and the mysterious
recent two-week disappearance of successor-designate Xi
Jinping.”

“The leadership undoubtedly is hoping that having disposed
of the political element of the Bo imbroglio, they can proceed
with a smooth leadership transition and return their attention
to trying to ameliorate -- if not solve -- their many and
serious problems.”

“Having been expelled from the party, I believe Bo no
longer has immunity from trial by the state. I’d been
speculating that his trial wouldn’t be until after the party
congress had solidified the succession to Hu and Wen. So it’s
likely we can expect more salacious details when that happens.”

“Having the kitchen sink thrown at him reminds me of
earlier diatribes against ‘the doctrine of the wavering middle,’
wherein the party decided that no one should be portrayed as
having elements of both good and evil within them. They were
either wholly devoted to the party and the people or wholly evil
and against them. A domestic version of Mao’s ‘whoever is not
with us is against us’ in foreign policy. The practice outlived
Mao.”

“Somewhat ironic that Bo, who wanted to go back to the
‘Good Old Days’ has been besmirched by one of the less savory
practices of the ‘Good Old Days.’”

Steve Tsang, director of the China Policy Institute at the
University of Nottingham in England:

“It means they have agreed on what to do with Bo Xilai.
You could see that in the trials of Gu Kailai and Wang Lijun he
was not directly implicated. Until now, the top leadership was
not able to agree on it, which is why he was not mentioned in
the Gu and Wang trials. It means the leadership’s agreed on what
to do with Bo Xilai, which was the difficult thing.”

“If they are saying ‘huge bribes,’ that has an implication
on sentencing. Small bribes is for jailing; really huge bribes
are potentially a capital offense. I don’t expect Bo to be
sentenced to death but it will be a harsh sentence. He will
live.”

“It’s a trade off. The whole Bo Xilai outcome could only
be decided as part of the horse trading for the leadership mix
and that’s why the timing of the two things came together.”

“Leaders in various power blocks were willing to bring Bo
Xilai down. Having done so it was difficult to agree what to do
with Bo Xilai. You will have a lot people with princeling
backgrounds who would not like to see Bo being too harshly
treated.”

“The Bo issue was tied up with the whole package for the
succession. How much would the princelings be willing to pay to
get Bo Xilai a light sentence. The answer was not too much.”

“It looks as though Bo’s case will be settled before the
congress. Because it’s all tied up with the whole package of
succession. Now, once this is agreed and a date for the Congress
has been set, it means that they have basically a lineup for the
new leadership.”

“The announcement of Bo’s expulsion is no surprise. It
conforms to how the party has dealt with disgraced senior
officials in the past. It also shows how powerful Bo’s enemies
are. They simply would not accept anything less because that
could leave the door open for Bo to make a comeback. They have
to bring him down from heaven and send him to hell.”

“The harsh punishment of Bo gives the new leadership a
clean slate and helps with bolstering its authority. Of course,
there is one more piece of unfinished business - Bo’s show
trial. That may happen within a year, but not necessarily very
soon. He probably will get 15-18 years, similar to the sentences
received by fallen Politburo members in the last 20 years.”

Cheng Li, China specialist at the Brookings Institution:

“With the Bo Xilai case, they not only talk about
corruption but they also talk about womanizing. These all
reflect the effort to try to improve the image of the
leadership. They now punish leaders for doing these terrible
things.”

“Of course the public will be cynical but at least they
can still say from time to time these people will be caught.
From time to time it’s too outrageous and they have to deal with
that”.

“There’s nothing surprising here. The Communist Party of
China, beginning in the 1930s, has never compromised with the
people it purges. The kitchen-sink-throw is normal. Charges like
bribery and sexual misconduct are standard in this kind of
political combat.”

“In this case, they may well be true, but the same charges
would be true of so many officials, all of the time, that we
must view their use here as political acts, not as coming from
any genuine legal or moral concerns.”

“That said, Bo will be sent to a comfortable prison, not a
squalid cell of the kind the vast majority of Chinese prisoners
endure. In the past, the privilege of getting cushy treatment in
prison has been just one more perk of membership in the
Communist elite.”

Jean-Pierre Cabestan, head of the government and international
studies department at Hong Kong Baptist University:

“That’s big news that has required a lot of political
negotiation and consensus building but also political courage to
go that far to the cost of postponing by a few weeks the
Congress. That is the smallest price. The biggest is that this
decision may have alienated a number of neo-cons et al.”

“A lot of Chinese hope that will help the incoming
leadership (with or without Hu) to revive political reforms. The
problem is that many top leaders could be accused of the same
crime or misbehaviors as Bo, so we need to be extra careful
about the political implications of this big news.”

“But on the whole, what the Communist Party leadership and
Xinhua say today correspond to what a lot of us have known,
speculated or thought for quite a long time.”

“It’s a temporary alleviation of pressure on the party. Bo
was like an undigested goat’s head in the tiger’s belly and now
he’s been expelled. His fate is not known but not bright.”

“Bo was not the whole bone of contention. He was an
expression of the need for more dynamic actors in the party.
Those needs have not disappeared. There’s still a need for
people to act as a lightning rod for popular likes and dislikes
of the people.”

“You’ve removed him, now you’ve got to find someone else,
otherwise the party is left with lots of yes men.”